[单项选择]Between the invention of agriculture and the commercial revolution that marked the end of the Middle Ages, wealth and technology developed slowly indeed. Medieval historians tell of the centuries it took for key inventions like the watermill or the heavy plow to diffuse across the landscape. During this period, increases in technology led to increases in the population, with little if any appearing as an improvement in the median standard of living.
Even the first century of the industrial revolution produced more "improvements" than "revolutions" in standards of living. With the railroad and the spinning and weaving of textiles as important exceptions, most innovations of that period were innovations in how goods were produced and transported, and in new kinds of capital, but not in consumer goods. Standards of living improved but styles of life remained much the same.
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a faster and different kind of change. For the first time, tech
A. are impossible to compare across centuries.
B. are more expensive than the nineteenth century.
C. are cheaper than they were in the nineteenth century.
D. need to be measured by comparing upper-class essentials such as having a butler.

[单项选择]Between the invention of agriculture and the commercial revolution that marked the end of the Middle Ages, wealth and technology developed slowly indeed. Medieval historians tell of the centuries it took for key inventions like the watermill or the heavy plow to diffuse across the landscape. During this period, increases in technology led to increases in the population, with little if any appearing as an improvement in the median standard of living.
Even the first century of the industrial revolution produced more "improvements" than "revolutions" in standards of living. With the railroad and the spinning and weaving of textiles as important exceptions, most innovations of that period were innovations in how goods were produced and transported, and in new kinds of capital, but not in consumer goods. Standards of living improved but styles of life remained much the same.
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a faster and different kind of change. For the first time, tech
A. believed that they were very much the same as their equals some two thousand years before.
B. probably thought that great changes had occurred since Cicero.
C. felt that qualitative changes had occurred in the last two thousand years.
D. believed in the efficacy of slavery.

[填空题]Before the invention of agriculture men were hunters. They went out every day. Sometimes they killed animals; sometimes animals killed them. Life was hard and dangerous. Women (11) go out every day, too. They collected roots, fruit and grasses. Then, one day, (12) years ago, a woman dropped some grass seeds. She dropped them near her home. They grew and the first wheat (13) . The idea grew, too. Women planted roots and fruit tree. Then they could stay at home and (14) the children and the animals. Women liked baby animals. They kept the baby animals: dogs, cows, sheep and goats. That idea grew, too. Then their husbands did net have to go hunting for meat. They stayed at home. They (15) villages and cities. Civilization began. Men began civilization after women invented agriculture.